Cyprus Education Minister participates in Commonwealth meeting

Minister of Education and Culture Andreas Demetriou participated in the 4th Commonwealth Sports Ministers Meeting, in Beijing on 9 August, on the occasion of the 2008 Olympic Games.

Demetriou is accompanying the President of the Republic Demetris Christofias, in Beijing for the Olympic Games. The President met on Monday with his Chinese counterpart.

A communique issued by more than 40 Ministers, who attended the meeting, said that they recognise the growing momentum of the movement to promote sport for development, and the congruence with the work of the Commonwealth to support the achievement of health, social and economic development through sport.

They also endorsed the policy adopted by Commonwealth Youth Ministers at their meeting in Colombo, Sri Lanka, in April this year, which advocates the development of policies to provide young people with access to sport education in schools and training opportunities be available to teachers and coaches. In addition, young people should be involved in shaping and implementing sport strategies, while national strategies and programmes should be designed to address young people with special needs.

The Ministers recognised the importance of an integrated youth sport strategy which draws together the education, health, gender, culture, law and order, and sport sectors that will promote the coherence of policies and better co-ordination of programmes.

At the conclusion of the meeting, the Ministers noted that although 52 Commonwealth countries are signatories of the Copenhagen Declaration on Anti-Doping in Sport, only 26 of them had become a state party to the UNESCO International Convention against Doping in Sport.

The Director-General of the World Anti-Doping Agency, David Howman, who addressed the meeting, encouraged all Commonwealth countries to become state parties to the convention as a sign of commitment to the anti-doping programme.